Why did they file for bankruptcy?
- rising interest rates
- high inflation
- Difficulty hiring
- ongoing war in Ukraine
I'd consider COVID related matters to be the biggest driver of bankruptcy within the last two years. Interest rates, inflation, labor shortages are all a result of COVID lockdowns causing the government to begin printing money as a form of economic stimulation. All the meanwhile, businesses are forced to close down.
To the extent government can force you to close your business, I don't know what an entrepreneur is suppose to do to combat that. Being flexible with e-commerce might be a mitigating factor but that isn't feasible for a lot of businesses.
Bankruptcy started right after the second worst wave during the covid when whole world stood still and Governments were not understanding on what to do about it?
Imagine whole supply chain from multi-national routes, whether sea or air were stopped and billions of dollars worth transactions suddenly went to zero. This was definitely a seeding activity for the economic crash and start of inflation during that point.
The factors which OP mentioned were not responsible for it, but they got initiated due to pandemic after effects. Excluding WAR situation others were definitely the reasons for same. Now, when the War broke out it was aggregating factor because it involved one of the biggest supplier of oil which again is one of the crucial fuel to drive the economy world wide.
In short everything was inter connected and it started that very chain reaction to make businesses go bankrupt.